Once, when I planned pancakes for dinner, I always used to think about potato pancakes. I prepared them with onion and pepper and served them with sugar or cream. A few years ago, when I was carving a Jack O' Lantern, I made pumpkin pancakes for the first time. I prepared them like potato pancakes, but they were milder, and we liked them so much that we forgot about potato ones for a long time.

Today I prepared these yummy and very simple pancakes. I used butternut squash, which is my new favourite food. You can prepare the fig preserve from fresh fruit. We brought some excellent fig preserve back from our summer holiday. It went very well with these summer pumpkin pancakes. For anyone who doesn't like fruit in their pancakes, I recommend maple syrup or natural yoghurt.

Ingredients (for 20 pancakes)
600g of peeled pumpkin
half an onion
5 tablespoons of flour
2 eggs
salt and pepper
oil for frying

Herrings with potatoes is a very painful memory of the school canteen for many of us. Though we like herrings with onion, I rarely serve it for dinner. Today I decided to break this rule and prepared herrings for dinner. I served herrings and potatoes once again, but in a completely different way.

I served baked jacket potatoes. The herrings were excellent with cream sauce and onion, apple and dill pickles. See for yourself if you like this way of preparing herrings.

Ingredients (for 2 people)
6 potatoes
2 tablespoons of olive oil
200g of herrings in oil
200g of 18% cream
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise
1 tablespoon of mustard
half an onion
1 apple
3 dill pickles
2 tablespoons of minced dill

Today the children will have to forgive me, but adults also sometimes want a little pleasure. This is a recipe for people who don't have to drive a car or work, i.e. for lucky people or those who can rest at the weekend. Irish coffee is a drink made with strong coffee, Irish Whiskey, whipped cream and brown sugar. It is excellent on cold days. I recommend it after an autumn walk or when the lack of sun really gets you down. Basically, you can spike the coffee with any whiskey, but in my opinion Jameson Irish Whiskey is the best for this drink.

If you don't like whiskey, instead you can prepare another kind of spiked coffee: French coffee – with brandy, Spanish coffee – with sherry, or Jamaican coffee – with dark rum.

Ingredients (for 2 drinks)
300ml of strong, hot coffee
40ml of Jameson Irish Whiskey
150ml of 30% sweet cream
4 teaspoons of coarse brown sugar
1 teaspoon of caster sugar
4 drops of vanilla essence

Today I would like to share with you the recipe for a dessert which was made with internet inspiration and the combination of two other recipes: carrot cake and pumpkin muffins with fruit stew. These muffins were an immediate hit at my Halloween party last year. I had to use baked and blended pumpkin for them. This time I used raw, grated pumpkin. I prepare carrot cake in exactly the same way. One of the ingredients in both desserts is cinnamon. It gives baked goods a slight taste of gingerbread. Thanks to the juicy vegetables, the muffins are moist and yummy even the next day.

Ingredients (for 24 muffins)
210g of grated pumpkin
2 eggs
200g of flour
180ml of oil
180ml of milk
130g of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
100g of chopped dark chocolate
150g of white chocolate

Yesterday, for the first time this autumn I put a warmer coat on. For me the first cold days are difficult. When the temperature outside comes down to 5C, I think that it couldn't be colder. Then we get used to it. In the spring, when the temperature is over 5C we want to take our flimsy clothes out of the drawer. When it is so bitterly cold outside we gladly reach for something sweet.

Today I would like to share with you the recipe for swift autumn cookies with French pastry and a sweet ginger-cinnamon-pear stuffing. Served with afternoon coffee they warm us up brilliantly and dispel the foul autumn weather.

Ingredients (8 cookies)
1 pack of chilled French pastry
1 big pear
1 flat teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of fresh grated ginger
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons of milk